Flotation cells may use polyurethane-cast or polyurethane-coated rotors on a rotating shaft and stationary stators to agitate a slurry containing flotation reagents within a housing. As slurry enters one end of the flotation cell and moves to an opposite end, some of the particles within the slurry, which are made hydrophobic due to the addition of flotation reagent(s), are attached to bubbles formed by virtue of a rotor rotating within a stator. At the opposite end of the flotation cell, coarser particles which are not “floated” exit the housing and may be re-floated or re-ground and then re-floated. Depending on design, flotation cells may also comprise dip tubes. Examples of such flotation cells are the FLSmidth® DORR-OLIVER®, WEMCO®, XCELL™, and SuperCell™ flotation cells.
Rotors, stators, baffles, liners, and lip portions of dip tubes typically exhibit the greatest amount of wear within flotation cells. Abrasive slurry containing particles to be floated scrub against surfaces of these components and wear the surfaces over time. This wear can alter the profiles of these components and possibly alter the fluid dynamics within the cell, leading to losses in efficiency and/or recovery. Since wear experienced by flotation components is not visually observable in operation, a plant operator typically needs to discharge any slurry, pulp, and froth from a flotation cell, and then gain internal access for a closer visual inspection. This takes a significant amount of time, requires shutdown, and reduces throughput. The systems and methods disclosed herein provide a way to continuously monitor the state of wear of components within a flotation cell in-situ and during operation so that the current state of wear can be known without needing to halt the operation of the flotation cell for manual visual inspection.
There are many variations of wear management systems which have been attempted. One example of a conventional wear management system is the Krebs SmartCyclone™ system provided by FLSmidth Krebs. Other examples of conventional wear-management systems may be found in the following patents and patent application publications: U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,001, U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,077, U.S. Pat. No. 5,266,198, U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,982, U.S. Pat. No. 6,686,752, U.S. Pat. No. 6,945,098, and US20030209052.